Anyone have a swimming pool at home ? What was your local lido called ?

Reminiscing my childhood and remembering the fun times we had at my cousins house at their pool.

Absolutely no idea what the cost is to build and maintain.

Of course no childhood was complete in the 1970/80s if you didn’t go to the local lido, ours was Finchley lido.

Name your local lido…

In answer to your first question. I do. We built it ourselves and ordered the pool and roof from Poland as it was a fraction of the price from Germany, Took three months of solid work to build but our kids love it in the long summer we have here. As for a local Lido when I was a kid? No, never had one near where I lived…only a swimming pool.

Had my first kiss at Hood Park in Ashby. Its an outdoor pool. Actually it was just the pool, I dont think there was an indoor one? Are Lidos as southern thing?

As for running costs. We looked at a house with one, they reckoned on £1500 a year in gas. And that was for a concrete hole in the ground heated by a central heating boiler. There must be a better way of building it (insulated fiberglass?) and heating it (solar?). But I was still surprised it was cheaper than a couple of gym memberships.

Whipps Cross

River Tame

Had my first kiss at Hood Park in Ashby. Its an outdoor pool.

I hope it wasn’t heavy petting, we all know that was banned along with running, smoking and bombing

Guilford Lido. Bloody marvelous place. 50m pool with grass and gardens around it. I used to live half a mile away and have a season ticket.

They’d close at 6 and open at 6:30 for lane swimming. No buoys/lines, just find a spot.
I’d ride there in my swimming shorts, flip-flops and a t shirt, lock the bike up with the D lock through the flip flops, queue up with the other 5 or 10 who were there before re-opening.
They’d go left and right to change, I’d fling my t-shirt on a bench and dive into the still, unbroken water, swim half a length underwater and pop up to watch my entry wave come to meet me.

Swimming pools ?, garden ponds ??, my my, this is coming across like a very posh forum.

does anyone here have a butler ? 😕

Outdoor pool ? Luxury.

We had to go to the seaside. Morcombe. It had one of those filled-by-the-sea-coming-in-and-over-it pools. With mussels growing on the walls and crabs in the bottom 😱

But these days ?

The 40 yard long spring fed lido at the New Bath Hotel, Matlock Bath. It’s lovely. Was in there at dinner time today. 18.8 degrees C today. Puuurfick.

(The water comes in one end from a natural spring at about 17.5C.  Flows through and then out the other end, off down into the River Derwent.  No chemicals. No heating. No impact on the environment.

Stays nearly the same temp all year, give or take a couple of degrees (maybe down to 14.5 in.mid winter when there’s snow about)

We had to go to the seaside. Morcombe. It had one of those filled-by-the-sea-coming-in-and-over-it pools. With mussels growing on the walls and crabs in the bottom

Hers is probably good few degrees warmer, though, I’ll give you that!

Learnt to swim in Amersham pool. Now living in Wales, loads of rivers available as well as the local but now closed Brynamman Lido. I hear that there may be plans to get it reopened. Fingers crossed.

Anyone else impressed that the first reply was surprisingly “yes, I’ve got a private indoor pool” 😀

Abergavenny used to have a lido in Bailey Park. Memories of going there a few times in the early 70s. Then a kid drowned in it and its days were numbered. In the late 80s I went out with a girl whose parents had a really lovely pool in their garden high on the mountain above Abergavenny. We spent hours in that pool over many summers. I sometimes wonder why I walked away from that one. She is now a consultant orthopaedic surgeon. Oh yeah, I think her middle name was Louise.

Burgess Hill pool in St John’s park – it was in full colour in my day 😉

Apparently it got filled in in 1999, the year I left home for uni. To be fair, they have built a fantastic leisure centre with outdoor lazy river and flumes. Way more fun, if a little less nostalgic.

I have a pool, but live in Australia where everyone has one. Humblebrag.

Had a canal and the river Neath in my back garden as a kid, had an amazing time growing up in and around the water there. Made rafts, had little row boats, awesome times.
If it was hot we would, and still do, head up to the deeper pools by Clyne to chill in the river there. Plenty of places around there to mess about in the water.

Early formative years spent in Warwickshire, and remember our local pool (the Pingles?) ran a multiple entry passport scheme for the summer holidays- cost something like 50p. We often went twice a day. From memory is was a big Olympic size pool with proper high diving boards,, which the kids had free access to. Terrying but exhilarating!

Then moved to Wiltshire early eighties, and had another big, but open air pool at Monkton Park. Dad got us into scuba diving, and the local BSAC club were asked to provide “safety cover” for the 1982 edition of “Its a knockout” which had several water based events filmed there. There was a death slide rigged from the top of the highest diving board, from which contestants had to drop onto floating pontoons. All hard edges and lots of nasty injuries in rehearsals, looking back health and safety seemed pretty optional! Joined the crew and contestants for lunch at the neighbouring sports centre and saw how Stuart Hall leched at the girls, who were all over him as a TV personailty – we saw how that all turned out 🙄

Rounding off, next door neighbours had a great open air pool in their very modest garden. We were invited round a lot – with our Scuba kit often helped with repairs and maintenance, in return for almost free reign access over the summers. Neighbours moved, new owners immediately filled it in, shame…

This was my lockdown project last spring.

Was anyone around to see the lido in Millhouses park in Sheffield? Apparently there was one around the area where the fish bypass is.

We only had a big outdoor paddling pool in our local park but I lived in Plymouth for a while which has a nice lido.

Henleaze Swimming Lake when I was a kid. You can’t even join the waiting list now.

does anyone here have a butler ?

If you don’t have a butler, you are the butler.

Summer hols, WACADAY finishes, get bucket (normally an old 20 litre tile adhesive container) and spade, crappy inflatable dingy (no oars), walk the 400 yards to the top of the road, over the sea wall and the paradise below awaited.

Sunny Canvey Island….

Would spend all day up there. If the tide was out crabbing or mud fights then as it came in, we’d jump off the wall of the tidal swimming pool as the wash from container vessel would create “surf” as they moved up the Thames to Tilbury docks.

When we got older we’d go up to the jetty and jump off at high tide…. looking back that was stupid, launching off the highest put meant the lowest water depth.

Then walk home, gingerly, bare foot on red hot tarmac, jump in the shower and sting the sun burn out of yourself.

Happy Days

My dad had a pool when he lived in California. Our girls learnt to swim in that from a very early age. Our local lido was Ruislip. Ruislip Lido, a big lake in the middle if Ruislip Woods, great place.

Are Lidos as southern thing?

Nope, off the top of my head, there are Lidos in ‘the north’, Hathersage, Ilkley and Ingleton have them.

I’ve earmarked the area where the kids swings are for a small pool in the garden, but that’ll have to wait a few years. Would like one of those jet machine things that creates a current to swim against though.

No pool, can’t swim, no interest in it but Mrs Kilo is off to Tooting lido in half an hour and that’s still going strong after about 120 years.

Deer Leap in Ashridge was a quite ride for me up Tom’s hill. unheated, open year round. went a few times in the winter with my dad and had to break the ice as you swam.
Awesome fun with the dodgiest diving boards in the world (very old wood that had no grip after the first wet kid had jumped off, very sketchy).
fresh doughnuts and surrounded by grass. good times!

Sold a good few years back and now a McMansion (which actually looks quite nice)

The local outdoor pool/lido here is pretty cool in ways than one… Da Muckle Loch

As a kid we just had the north sea at Saltburn, but there was an outdoor pool and a lido at Scarborough that we got to sometimes on ‘the club trips’. The village Working Man’s Club put on an annual village trip to Scarborough for families where we all piled in to decrepit buses, complete with paper bag packed lunch, for a day out down the coast. It seemed like a real adventure and treat at the time!

@BillMC Whipps Cross was mine as well.
It was a fantastic location being right on the edge of Epping Forest, such a shame when it closed and fell into disrepair. We used have a lot of fun building rafts in there when it was derelict as well, I remember there being fish in the manky water!

Not just southern. Mysteriously there are five outdoor pools near Penrith not including Center Parcs – http://www.visiteden.co.uk/what-to-do/sports-activities/swimming-pools/. I live nowhere near Penrith ☹️

@ambrose, Amersham pool is being replaced – should open in the autumn.

We didn’t have a lido in Maidstone where I grew up, we had a proper Victorian swimming band washing baths down by the river and gas works. That got replaced by a modern pool. There was also a pool in the Royal Engineers barracks that my dad had access to.

With all that in place it took me until 14 to learn to swim and that was in Yugoslavia (now Croatia) on holiday.

I think the most northerly lido in the UK would have been Tarlair? We had Portobello in Edinburgh though I was never in it.

The 40 yard long spring fed lido at the New Bath Hotel, Matlock Bath

Saw that had reopened but didn’t know the whole spring fed thing. Will have to pay a visit – might need some lessons to remember how to actually swim first

I think the most northerly lido in the UK would have been Tarlair? We had Portobello in Edinburgh though I was never in it.

There was an actual lido (now a carpark) in Scalloway until 1993
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/scottish-daily-mail/20190629/282355451286641

We had the River Tarff, an idyllic pool with four foot of clean water, sandy bottom, wee fishes and a grassy bank with shady trees if you needed it. Magic.
Here’s Stonehaven lido though from a trip up to the grandparents in Aboyne, probably 1970/71..

And that would be me aged 8 or 9 at the top of the chute…

Yes, Ive got an indoor pool. Got no water in it though, nor will it again. Interestingly if you have a fibreglass pool (as I do) and you leave it empty over time the swell of the ground lifts it out and you can’t use it anymore. So top tip pool owners, keep your pool weighed down with an elephant or something if you take the water out.

Not much point in having a pool at home when this is so close you can see the roof of our house in the pic. 50m, 27°C all year round even during a pandemic so far.

A lot of time spent at Gourock pool as a youngster, still some of the weirdest changing rooms/caves I’ve used!

Hilarious going there with my kids now as heated sea water does not compute in relation to ingestion or floatability

In Queensland it’s pretty essential. Butlers are frowned upon though.

Swam at Uxbridge Lido as a kid visiting my grandparents.

Alfreton Lido for me – loved that place – especially the diving pool where I perfected my belly flops of the top board!

Spent so much time there in the summer months. Just found this old video of the opening of it.

Hathersage outdoor pool was close to home a s kid. Only remember going once as an awkward young teen and my more confident mate chatting up girls while my dad was on the side so I was utterly embarrassed. This wasn’t helped when the girl accused me of having a hard on (which i didn’t).